The Arizona sentinel., 1887-09-10
THE BUSY BEE.
Some of Its Wonderful Working
 Habits.

The picturesque and traditional straw hive is nowadays used only in those rural communities where the people cling to the ways of their fathers.
 The hive of the past was chamber in which the bees were left to their own devices, prey to their natural ene- mics and unnatural ills, and from which their honey product was only obtained by ruthless slaughter of the honey-makers themselves. who were smothered in the fumes of sulphur and birthstone.
 The hive of the presents structure any part of which can at any time be reached or removed by the bee-keeper, who may thus practically exercise a control over the work of the bees, and study their singular habits.
 In our study of the subject, let us start with an empty hive. modern, ot course. It may be one of fifty different kinds, or shapes, but it will have cer- tain features common to all. There will be some ten shelves. or frames, fitted one above another, or hung downwards in row, with sufficient space between each. and around each, to allow the free passage of the bees. The spaces must not be larger than this. or the bees will fill them with comb and honey, and thus render it impossible for us to have access to the various frames without cutting away the deposit
 Into this empty hive we put swarm of bees. If we revisit it in two or three days, we shall find that marvel ous change has taken place in the in- terior. The frames are all filled with blocks of honeycomb, tiny waxen cells, hexagonal in shape, and built with all the nicety and precision of skilled engineering. This is the first of the many wonders which character izes the work of the beehive. Here is a miniature city, constructed out of a delicate and yet strong fabric, and built according to the most exact .geometrical principles. It has been the wonder of naturalists and mathe- maticians for ages, not merely the fact of building, but the manner of build ing. In the structure of these hexagonal cells, the bee has solved for itself an intricate mathematical prob lem. It has chosen the form which the science of geometry has proved is the only one suitable to the various purposes for which the honey-comb is designed, and it used this form ages before men knew any thing of geom- etry.
 Having built their city, the bees next proceed to put it in order and furnish their dwellings. We will assume that the season is spring, as we should by no means have put the swarm into new hive after the honey season, leav- ing it unstocked for the winter. The principal member of the colony is the queen, whom you can easily distinguish from all the rest because her body is longer than the others. and because she carries herself in royal fashion, surrounded by a retinue of loyal attendants. The queen is, properly speaking, the mother-bee. Each bee in the hive is her own child There are thousands of these children. A pros porous and well-stocked hive will con- tain from twenty to fifty thousand and even sixty thousand bees. They are divided into two classes-workers and drones. The workers are females, but they have no offspring. The drones are males, and. as their name im- plies, do not work. They seldom form more than a fiftieth part of the population of the hive
 The mother-bee, or queen, to use the name by which she is best known, has, apparently, some weather signal serv- ice of her own, for she seems to know whether or not the season will be pro- ductive of honey, and to lay her eggs accordingly. If the season is forward she begins her work early in the spring; if it is backward she defers it for few weeks or month. She pro- duces from two to three thousand eggs every twenty-four hours, depositing each one in a separate cell, which she first closely examines to see whether or no it is in proper order.
 The larve which issue from these eggs in the course of three or four days are assiduously attended by bees who act the part of nurses, and event. ually close the mouths of the cells with waxen cover. In twenty-one days from the time the eggs were laid the inmates of the cells break through the waxen lids and issue forth in the shape of perfect worker bees. They are then taken in charge by the nurses, who evidently explain to them the life of the hive, and in another day or two they venture out upon the world and begin thelr work in the fields and meadows. The birth of a drone is at tended by similar processes. some ,,,hot lon0ar hoWayer in duration.